Spooky Season 2024

I had a strange time this October. Mental health was not mental healthing properly, so I spent half of the month dealing with that and the other half being Tired in general. I’m a little sad I didn’t have as much fun as I had in October the previous year, but oh well, what can you do, right?

My spooky season usually starts in September anyway, so I’m counting some of the things I did then as part of Spooky Season 2024. I started some Halloween cross-stitch projects… though I didn’t exactly finish all of them. I’d mostly been working on the pumpkin pattern by The Witchy Stitcher and I did finish it (on Halloween!). I also started this Dracula sampler, which I modified to only have the quote and the border to reduce the size, and a 3D Halloween barn from plastic Aida. Those are the ones I ended up putting on the back burner in favor of the pumpkin, but that’s okay. I can finish them some other time. What I also finally made is the bat pillow (see pic below), which I wanted to make last year but never even started, oops! This time I actually managed to start it… and then abandoned it for weeks :’) It’s done now though, and it looks cute – from afar, that is. I’m not that great with a sewing machine yet.

I also participated in this year’s Halloween event from 32Bit Café by making a frankendiv – a div that was “stitched” together with divs created by other participants to make a Frankenstein’s monster of sorts. I decided to make a list of spooky old-time radio recommendations! No, it wasn’t just so I could talk about my queen Agnes Moorehead again, what are you talking about. This time it consisted only of Suspense episodes because that’s what I listen to the most, but perhaps I’ll make a list of episode recs from other shows at some point.

On October 31 I had a little wander around the mall near my workplace. I like doing that on Halloween because as much as my country doesn’t do Halloween, you can still spot teenagers in costumes + some shops decorate and put on thematic displays (I really liked the middle grade horror display at the bookshop the year before). It’s very pleasing to me personally that the number of both seems to be growing each year despite everything.

At the mall I also stocked up on some candy and later at home I ate it while watching a Scooby-Doo episode. I also played a bit of Ghost Town Pumpkin Festival, which is an annual server where you can display your virtual pumpkins and tour the town as a little ghost. Note to self: this game is better played during the entire October, not just at the end of it. Here’s a couple of silly screenshots I took (featuring some ghostsona selfies with a super cool OTGW-themed pumpkin and a really funny accidental screenshot):

Crafts I made

Sad Beistle Pumpkin by The Witchy Stitcher (free pattern)

Halloween bat pillow

Watching

Movies

🎃 The Bat (1959) - what a wonderful movie! Agnes Moorehead plays a mystery novelist who rents a house in an area that used to be terrorized by a serial killer known as The Bat. It's definitely more of a mystery thriller with only a dash of horror and Scooby-Doo-esque shenanigans that are very fun to watch. This movie was also full of sapphic undertones, and I could recommend it based on those alone, haha. This was Aggie’s only leading role, and I’m personally inconsolable about that. Vincent Price was also there, but not much. 3.5/5

👽 House on Haunted Hill (1959) – another Vincent Price film from 1959; I swear this wasn’t intentional! This one's very wacky and very iconic (the walking skeleton? the fucking pool of acid in the basement? WOW) and it was giving Scooby-Doo even more than The Bat, but something was just... off for me. All the components for a fun time were there, but the final product was a bit of a drag and I'm not sure why. Perhaps the story itself was too dull and didn't hold up against the fun outlandish parts (again, an ACID POOL IN THE BASEMENT??), and that created a dissonance. 2.5/5

Shows

Reading

🎃 Prey by Graham Masterton (3.5/5)
I like Lovecraft-inspired books, and this was an okay one for me. It had many flaws (it's very evident that it was written by a man in the 90s, lol) and is definitely not a favorite of mine, but it was an engaging read. I was expecting more gore and slightly less existential dread.

👽 Trick or Treachery by Jessica Fletcher (Donald Bane) (3.5/5)
A Murder, She Wrote tie-in novel I've had for years and almost unhauled at some point. I'm glad I didn't! It was a fun read that had all the components of a classic Cabot Cove-set MSW episode. It was very autumnal and felt as cozy as those Cabot Cove episodes did, with a substantial part of the book being dedicated to Jessica doing Small Town Things while solving the murder. The show never actually had a Halloween episode (unbelievable, I know!), and I felt like this book could've easily been one. The one downside for me was that it was hard to keep track of all the suspects and other minor characters.

🎃 The Headless Ghost by R.L. Stine (4/5)
The last time I read it was probably decades ago! It was my favorite Goosebumps book when I was little. I thought the cover and the story itself were so scary... and in a way I still do, haha. Beheadings still scare me, and the stories of other supposed hauntings at that house were unexpectedly gruesome - like the guy who burned to death in the fireplace and the only thing left of him were his hands that didn't burn because he grabbed the mantlepiece or whatever. What the hell.

👽 Autumncrow by Cameron Chaney (3.5/5)
I've been following Cameron's Youtube channel for several years and living vicariously through him while admiring his vintage horror library. Now I finally read his first book and it was a GREAT October read! This antology of short stories is set in a small town where it's Halloween year-round, so the atmospere was top-notch. Fittingly, I also finished it on Halloween! My favorite stories were Burnt Brownies, I Have No Mouth And I Must Feed and CRYP-TV.

🎃 Attack of the Jack-O'-Lanterns by R.L. Stine (2.5/5)
The cover tricked me into thinking there would be a jack-o'-lantern-headed dog, but there wasn't one... why oh why did you do this to me, Tim Jacobus? :( The book itself was pretty mid, definitely not one of Stine's best. I still enjoyed the wackiness and the Halloween atmosphere, but it's no The Haunted Mask and I doubt I'll be reading it again. I would've found the twist at the end annoying if I'd read this book as a kid, but now it's just funny.

Old-time radio

🎃 The Hitch-Hiker (Suspense) - one of the most iconic Suspense episodes and episodes of spooky radio in general. The radio play was later made into an equally iconic Twilight Zone episode. The sense of dread in this one is unmatched.

👽 Flesh Peddler (Suspense) - this one fits into my personal favorite Halloween vibe a little more because it takes place at a carnival and is about a ventriloquist's dummy.

🎃 Poltergeist (Lights Out) - this is a great Christmas listen because it takes place in winter and most of it is set outside in snowed-in countryside. Very atmospheric, this one.

2023 October log

All in all, I had a lovely, calm, warm October and really enjoyed my favorite season! The weather was warm and all around lovely, which made my walks home from work particularly enjoyable <33

Autumnal Activities were plentiful. First of all, I decorated the little Halloween tree I got in a spooky package exchange some years ago (see photo 1) and baked two loaves of pumpkin bread (see photo 2). While I really dislike the taste of pumpkin overall - shocking, I know, but I only love pumpkins as a part of the autumn aesthetic - I loved the bread! It was a hit among my coworkers too.

As for my ~artistic pursuits~, I cross-stitched LOTS, made my first ever mini-zine for thegardenofmadeline’s spooky zine exchange AND tried my hand at pixel art by participating in the 32bit Cafe’s Halloween event. I was also going to make a bat-shaped pillow, but was struck by executive dysfunction mid-October, unfortunately :") Oh well, no one said I can’t make it during the other 11 months of the year! I’ll get to it eventually and I’m super excited about it.

I’ll elaborate on my October reads and watches below, but first I wanted to mention something that didn’t get its own section this time: old time radio! As a fan of both Old Hollywood and all things spooky, I love classic radio shows like Suspense where my two favorite things come together. Weird Waves is a really neat project hosted here on Neocities that has quite a lot of my favorite episodes from different shows! I’ll eventually make a list of recommendations, but for now I’m just dropping a link.

And oh, I almost forgot – Halloween itself was very warm, to the point where you could wear a costume outside and not freeze your ass off. I, however, stayed indoors and had a nice self-care evening where I burned my favorite candles, reread The Haunted Mask (peek my childhood copy in Russian in pic 4) and rewatched the Scooby-Doo Halloween episodes in order.

Crafts I made

Spiderweb coaster by u/MaiasaLiger (free pattern)

Pumpkin Season by MamaWitchXstitch (free pattern from her FB group)

Hallow Kitty Surprise by The Witchy Stitcher

Watching

Movies I watched:

🎃 Scooby-Doo! and the Spooky Scarecrow (2013) - one of the six (I think?) DTV specials from the mid-2010s, technically not a feature-length movie, but I'm counting it as one. Fun, has all the Halloween staples, but not a favorite. 3/5.

👽 Happy Halloween, Scooby-Doo! (2020) - I don't know how the wacky combination of Elvira, Bill Nye and that dude from Batman actually managed to somewhat work. This movie is still on the lower end of my personal Scooby movie rating, but I had fun watching it and that's all that matters! However, it's time the writers stopped treating Velma like this arrogant genius archetype. She's my favorite character, but she's SO annoying in these recent iterations of Scooby-Doo and I HATE it. Justice for Velma! 3/5.

🎃 The Old Dark House (1932) - a movie I've been meaning to watch for years and finally got around to this past Halloween! I enjoyed the Gothic feel, the creative editing and the plot twist near the end, but I guess I went in with higher expectations than necessary. A very fun and enjoyable watch, great for Halloween, but nothing to write home about. I wonder what I'll think of it if I rewatch it in a few years. 3.5/5

👽 Trick or Treat, Scooby-Doo! (2022) - listen, I'm as happy about canon lesbian Velma Dinkley as the next person, but I WISH the vessel for it was better. Other than lesbian Velma, I liked exactly one thing about this movie, and that's the tribute to the original show at the beginning. For some reason, the animation style was really bugging me. Like, why are the female characters suddenly so curvy and move their hips so unnaturally? Why are ALL characters moving so damn much?? Some of it may be just personal preference, I guess, especially since it's by no means the first time Daphne and Velma were sexualized a bit too much for a children's movie. Maybe I'm just not vibing with this style of character animation... Eh. Either way, it did affect my enjoyment. If I had to choose between TOTSD and HHSD, I'd pick the latter. 3/5.

Scooby-Doo episodes I (re)watched:

The Harum-Scarum Sanitarium was the highlight of the season! I don't think I ever watched it as a kid - I'm sure I'd remember it if I did, lmao. It features so many things I found absolutely terrifying as a kid. The creepy old sanitarium as a setting, the dark and stormy night, the "dead bodies" covered with sheets, the ghost of the mad doctor with a terrifying laugh and unnaturally long arms... Now I get why people praise it as one of the scariest episodes of the franchise! I'm definitely adding it to my Halloween rotation.

Reading

🎃 My Best Friend’s Exorcism by Grady Hendrix (4/5)
I had a lovely time reading this, but I felt a bit underwhelmed, to be honest. I guess my expectations were a bit too high after watching some horror booktubers gush about this book. Nevertheless, I loved Abby and Gretchen’s friendship, and the ending damn near made me cry.

👽 Fear Street Cheerleaders Trilogy: First Evil (3.5/5), Second Evil (3/5), Third Evil (3/5) by R.L. Stine
I didn’t read many Fear Street books growing up – I’m pretty sure these were the only ones I read. In fact, I never even read Second Evil because I only owned the first and third book. Moreover, a certain death in First Evil freaked me out so much (the one involving a steaming hot shower – iykyk) that I didn’t pay much attention to the rest :D So a lot of it was new for me on a reread. I enjoyed it very much, but I enjoyed the first one the most! It brought back memories of reading it as a kid <3

🎃 The Phantom Coach by Amelia Edwards (short story) (3.5/5)
A classic ghost story I listened to while cross-stitching. I enjoy classic ghost stories, especially ones written by female authors, and I enjoyed this short and sweet one. I also found out Amelia Edwards was likely a lesbian, so! Yeah!

👽 Uncle Montague’s Tales of Terror by Chris Priestley (4.5/5)
This was a pleasant surprise! I didn’t expect to like this book this much at all. I have pleasant memories of buying it (bought it last October at an autumn market), and the illustrations remind me of Edward Gorey. The stories were delightful and full of unexpected twists. I think there’s a second book too? Will be buying that one for sure.

🎃 The Haunted Mask by R.L. Stine (3.5/5)
A Halloween classic I haven’t revisited in years. I read the whole book on Halloween night, and what a good choice it was! So much Halloween atmosphere in one little book. I can't say it's my favorite Goosebumps book, but it’s up there!

Halloweens past

Past log coming someday hopefully!